Watch The Inner Circle For Free

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Very well executed

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

If movie plots are like train wrecks, this one is up there with the crash in "The Greatest Show on Earth". Every element of this film noir rings a bell of falsehood. In some films, you might be tempted to walk out of the theater or simply press stop on your VCR or DVD player. In the case of "The Inner Circle", you'll stick with it just to see how far down the road of absurdity it will go.The plot deals with a private investigator (Warren Douglas) in need of an assistant who gets one that instant when all of a sudden a mysterious blonde (Adele Mara) walks in and announces that he's just hired her. Then, she takes a mysterious phone call from a "client" whom Douglas agrees to meet which results him stumbling onto a dead body and the veiled brunette client proceeds to conk him over the head. You won't be surprised to find out who she really is, and then the ridiculousness continues at a break-neck speed with a line-up of other suspects and Mara getting Douglas off for a murder he didn't commit on a self-defense charge.Cantankerous William Frawley plays a police investigator who trails both Mara and Douglas and always shows up at the most inconveniently obvious times. There's a grizzled old handyman (Will Wright) and housekeeper (Dorothy Adams) who worked for the victim (a radio columnist), as well as a nightclub singer (Virginia Christine, best known for the Folgers commercials years later) and the nightclub owner (veteran actor Ricardo Cortez). To top off the less than one hour of absurd story-telling, Douglas has Mara named as the killer and re-enacts the crime on a live radio show with everybody present with scripts in hand for the final denouncement.In spite of all the downright atrocious plot twists and developments, you might find yourself engrossed with ironic laughter at it all. Like the clown that slips on a banana peel and slides across the stage floor before landing with a thud, this movie slides through its six reels, landing on the floor, and leaving a rotten egg behind.

The current reviews for "The Inner Circle" on this board are about evenly divided, so I'll put my two cents in on the side of the positives. I thought the picture was better than it had a right to be given the usual cheapo treatment given these B programmers of the era. The hook for me occurred right in the opening scene introducing Johnny Strange of Action Incorporated in unusual fashion utilizing his business ad in the local phone directory. But it got better, when beautiful blonde Geraldine Smith (Adele Mara) answers a want-ad in progress from Johnny Strange himself (Warren Douglas), hanging up the phone and hiring herself on the spot. What Miss Smith was soon to learn was that "A secretary to Johnny Strange is no picnic...".For a film coming in at under an hour, this one sure has a lot of characters, understandable given the nature of the story. You had to spread the murder suspects around to keep the viewer guessing, and it isn't until half way into the picture that we learn that the murder victim, a gossip personality on radio, had a blackmail sideline going for him to supplement his income. A hundred grand to keep a senator's daughter out of the headlines seems like a pricey sum to me for 1946, but hey, any politician worth his weight could probably have come up with it. The other likely suspects include a torch singer (Virginia Christine), a housekeeper (Dorothy Adams), the gardener (Will Wright), and secretary extraordinaire, Miss Smith herself.In order to solve the case, Johnny Strange pulls a page out of the Charlie Chan play book, and brings all the suspects together for a live radio broadcast to smoke out the killer. Even with Johnny's explanation of how he was able to put it all together, it doesn't ring quite true, but beyond that, the flick winds up a nifty little time filler with an entertaining cast of characters. You've got your snappy banter between the principals, and with a little more work it might have elevated to the level of classic screwball comedy. Still and all, it's a pleasant diversion, and worth the effort. Oh yeah, can't forget William Frawley as the luckless detective, exhibiting some of the traits that would make him the Ricardo's favorite neighbor a few more years down the road.

This is a fast paced actioner, with a novel way to finish and nothing really too complicated. Adele Mara had a very healthy career and she was a very lovely adornment to the many movies she appeared in, even if they were only programmers.Johnny Strange (Warren Douglas)of Action Incorporated, is a private investigator, who is thinking of hiring a private secretary, when a mysterious Miss Smith (Adele Mara) breezes in and takes over in a very efficient but nice way. He accepts a job from another mysterious lady and finds he is set up for the murder of Anthony Fitch, a well known radio personality, who has many enemies. The mysterious lady and Miss Smith are the same - she is trying to protect her sister, who is wanted for the murder. William Frawley, long before his "I Love Lucy" days, plays Detective Webb, who is called in to investigate. Miss Smith, who just happens to be around, concocts a story that is not true but gets Johnny off.Johnny goes back to the scene of the crime to find out the truth and finds a record in the rubbish bin. Also the old caretaker has seen everything and pays Miss Smith a visit - he is returning her disguise he saw her put in the incinerator and wants a payment. When Johnny plays the record, he recognises the singer as Rhoda (Virgina Christine) a girl he used to know when she was a singer south of the border. Ricardo Cortez makes an always welcome appearance as Duke York, the owner of the Penguin Club and also an old friend of Johnnys.Miss Smith's sister, Anne (Martha Montgomery) enters the scene and tells how she was involved with Fitch - he was blackmailing her. She had been involved with a gangster and was now married to a politician. How the murderer is found out is achieved as a radio broadcast with everyone in the film playing their parts in front of microphones. It is an interesting ending to a very recommended film.

This is a romantic, comic mystery. Warner Brothers turned out a lot of these in the thirties and early forties. Jane Wyman was often the girl.Here, we have several girls. We have the secretary who appears out of nowhere. She works for a private investigator, Johnny Strange. (Was there another noun that could be added to Johnny to make a name for a movie character in that decade?) Then there's the mysterious veiled woman who calls for his services. Then there's Virginia Christine (Mrs. Olson of the coffee commercials a few decades later.) She sings in a club. Then there's ... OK: No more about the plot.That excellent and durable actor Ricardo Cortez somehow found himself at Republic. He turns in a variation on his usual cynical, suave performance. It's not his worst, either. But he is fourth-billed, below William Frawley, who plays a cop. And Adele Mara gets top billing.It's fun to watch. It could very easily have been better but it isn't terrible.